Featured & Rare Collection Items

An eclectic collection of 82 historical Bolivian imprints, including speeches, official memoranda, memoirs, educational materials, sermons, and more. Although a few items are hand-written, including the earliest sermon (1761, Oruro, Bolivia) the majority of items come from official presses in Chuquisaca (La Plata/Sucre) during the immediate post-revolutionary period (1830s-) and deal with ongoing border conflicts between Chilean, Bolivian, and Peruvian political elements.

A brief diary kept by prominent Illinois poet Carl Sandburg during part of his eight month tour in Puerto Rico as a member of Company C, 6th Infantry Regiment, Illinois Volunteers during the Spanish-American War. Covers the period 25 July 1898 to 12 August 1898.

Collection of letters belonging to the family of the Conde de Montemar, Diego José Carrillo de Albornoz y Bravo de Lagunas. The letters, of which we have approximately 300, were written between 1761 and 1799, mainly by one of the Count’s brothers, Pedro Carrillo de Albornoz y Bravo de Lagunas, but some by another brother, Fernando Carrillo de Albornoz y Bravo de Lagunas and their brother-in-law Francisco Manrique de Lara. This family was one of the wealthiest and most prestigious in all of the Viceroyalty of Peru, and in the Royal Court in Madrid, Spain. The letters’ topics include intimate familial matters, vice-royal politics, the church, Indian affairs, and economic activity.

This manuscript consists of around 70 pages of personal notes from the celebrated Chilean poet, journalist, educator, diplomat, and first Latin American recipient of the Noble Prize in Literature, Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957).

Series of 544 black and white post cards of landscapes and street scenes from all over South America and Spain. The postcards date from the late 1920s and 1930s. The majority of images are cityscapes of the metropolises and coastal centers of Peru, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, and Chile, but other popular images include Andean landscapes and street scenes of Andean Indians at market.

Collection of 58 imprints from the viceroyal press of Buenos Aires (La Real Imprenta de Niños Expósitos, Buenos Ayres) dating from the period of the Napoleonic Conquest and shortly after (1808-1813). The preserved imprints are typical of the press's publications at the time, which were mainly a patchwork of dispatches collected from various European newspapers. The fragmentary reports are a valuable primary source for the study of the Peninsular War from the perspective of Iberian sympathizers in South America.

Founded in 1891, the Jornal do Brasil is one of Brazil's oldest and most important newspapers. The Library has in print from 1966 to 2005, one of very few longest running collections for the newspaper in the US. The Library also has in microfilm from 1891 to 1901.

One of only two copies in the US (Center for Research Libraries). We have a complete run from June 1956 to December 1961. The Collection is available on DVD at the International and Area Studies Library, in-room use only.

Palafox was a seventeenth century Spanish bishop in Mexico who also served briefly as viceroy of New Spain from June 10, 1642 to November 23, 1642. The library maintains a collection of works by Palafox and others who were involved in his career, including 23 manuscripts, historical prints and translations housed in the Rare Books & Manuscripts library.

Collection contains 1476 pamphlets bound in 65 volumes covering the period from 1813 to 1908, the collection features speeches, essays, lectures, sermons, and dissertations together with manuscripts, newspapers clippings, political broadsides, and photographs dealing with Mexican politics and government, geography, religion, biography, history, etc. Taken as a whole they provide a first-hand account of the economic, political, and social conditions of 19th century México. The pamphlets originated primarily from the major publishing centers of the era, namely Aguascalientes, Guadalajara, Guanajuato, León, México, Puebla, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, and Zacatecas. Prominent Mexican authors and historical figures represented in the collection include Jesús Acal Ilisalituri, Ignacio Davila Garibi, Agustín Rivera, Alberto Santoscoy, Fortuno Hipólito Vera, among others. View the full finding aid and catalog here.

Papers of Oscar Lewis, professor of anthropology (1948-70) and Ruth Maslow Lewis, his wife and research associate (1918-2008), includes correspondence, publications, manuscripts, reviews and tapes relating to research in anthropology, American Indians, North Indian villages and culture, the sub-culture of poverty in urban Mexico and Puerto Rico and New York. Includes correspondence, reviews, typescript, galley proofs, and edited tape recordings of personal interviews used as source material for The Children of Sanchez (Random House, 1961); reviews and tape recorded interviews used as source material for Pedro Martinez, A Mexican Peasant and his Family (Random House, 1964) and the manuscript and galley proofs for La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty - San Juan and New York (Random House, 1966).

Papers of Julian Haynes Steward (1902-72), professor of anthropology (1952-72), including correspondence, reports, manuscripts, reviews, publications, government documents, minutes, newsletters, directories, conference programs, research proposals and applications, student records and evaluations, lecture notes, diaries, field notes, drawings, maps, charts and photographs relating to research and fieldwork on petroglyphs, cultural ecology and evolution, human ecology, cultural anthropology theory, multilinear evolution, ethnography, indigenous religions, cross cultural regularities, North and South American indigenous cultures, Ute, Paiute Carrier and Shoshone peoples, Southwestern United States archaeology and ethnology, Utah, Great Basin, Puerto Rico, travels and teaching in Japan as Director of the Kyoto American Studies Seminar (1956-57), and work on the Indian claims commission hearings (ca. 1950-55) and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (1936-37); etc.

Brazilian Telenovelas, 1970-2013

Acquired in 2013, these 25 Brazilian telenovelas were produced between 1970 and 2013 with a majority of them from the early to mid-2000s. Topics covered include love, class relations, race, slavery, o sertão, country life, urban life, modernization, military dictatorship, and comedy, among others. Plots cover from colonial times to the present. Most of the telenovelas are in color, yet a few are in black and white. The majority are in Portuguese without subtitles, yet some have subtitles in Spanish, English, French, or Portuguese. Contact Prof. Sotomayor for a full list with descriptions and call numbers: asotomay@illinois.edu.